


A Confession

by STARfruitNinja



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Talking, that's it thats the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23898559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARfruitNinja/pseuds/STARfruitNinja
Summary: Raihan and Gloria have a long talk about their best friends.(could be Raihan/Gloria if you squint real hard, but main focus is Gloria and Hop’s friendship.)
Relationships: Dande | Leon & Kibana | Raihan, Hop & Yuuri | Gloria, Kibana | Raihan & Yuuri | Gloria, Kibana | Raihan/Yuuri | Gloria
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	A Confession

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what suddenly possessed me to write this but here i am anyways. Also, no british accents in here sorry.

It’s Gloria’s birthday and her coworkers collectively decided to throw a grand party at Hammerlocke castle. All the gym leaders are in attendance. Hop and Leon have been doing a great job entertaining the guests. The merry atmosphere even got Piers to offer to perform on stage, which was a rare occasion outside of Spikemuth. It’s all good fun.

Only one thing was missing: the birthday girl herself.

She was talking with Hop and the other gym leaders for a good while, thanking them all for arranging everything and for the abundance of gifts she received. But after a few hours, they discovered the hall devoid of her. Hop enlisted the help of Raihan to locate her since he knew how to navigate the winding corridors of his castle best out of all of them.

After about twenty minutes of searching, Raihan found her at one of the balconies just a floor above the party hall. She sat on the railing, seemingly staring out at the vast view before her.

“Hey, hey, hey, there’s our lovely champion,” Raihan said, announcing his presence to her. “Hiding?”

“Just for a bit. Needed a break is all,” Gloria replied, before turning her attention back to the scenery.

Raihan stared at her for a moment before stepping towards her and leaning on the railing. “What's the grim look for? On your birthday, no less. Get a rotten gift?”

“Just...thinking about some stuff.”

Raihan hummed and took a seat beside her on the banister. “You must be freezing,” he commented. It was a pretty breezy spring night.

Gloria glanced down as if she just realized she was still wearing a dress before shrugging. “I didn’t really notice until now.”

“Here.” He shrugged off his signature zip-up hoodie that he had casually thrown over his dress shirt and handed it to her. 

“No, I—I couldn’t possibly—” she protested.

“I insist. Hop would have my head if you caught a cold.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ve got a long sleeve shirt, and _pants_. I think I’m doing way better than you even with the coat on,” he said, pointing at her exposed shins that her outfit didn’t cover. “C’mon.”

She huffed in amusement before finally taking the jacket from him and putting her arms through it. “Thanks, Raihan.”

“Anytime.”

When she pulled it on, she paused for a moment before furrowing her brow.

“Something wrong?”

Gloria lifted her arms, which had a significant length of the sleeves hanging off, and she pouted. “I hate how tall you are.”

Ah, that’s right. He was nearly two feet taller than her and she was practically swimming in his jacket.

He snorted before rifling his pockets for his Rotomphone. “I gotta take a pic of this.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“I think ‘#VerticallyChallenged’ would be _perfect_ here,” he cackled, focusing the camera on her.

She smacked him with the sleeve ends angrily. “No! No! No! Hop’s already hit his next growth spurt, I can’t stand anymore jokes about my height!”

He relents. “Okay, okay, I won’t post it publicly.”

She sighed in relief and ceased her sleeve assault on him.

“But I will send it to the others.”

“No!” She tried to reach over to grab his phone, but he easily held her at a distance with his longer arms as he snapped a couple more pictures. One of the fiercest champions Galar has seen in pokemon battle history, rendered helpless by her very own height. It was hilarious.

“Okay, okay, I won’t post it,” he said, and she eased back into her sitting position.

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t.”

She pouted. “I was _gonna_ share some of these,” she opened up her purse, fished for something with a rustle of crinkling plastic coming from the interior, and pulled out a handful of packaged snacks, “as thanks, but...”

“I won’t share them, trust me,” he grinned.

“Fine, I’ll take your word for it,” Gloria said.

Raihan raised an eyebrow. “Do you always keep these skwovetted away on your person?”

“Champion’s secret,” she replied with a grin.

He barked out a laugh before opening up a bag of chips.

They sat in silence for a bit, just staring out at the lights of Hammerlocke accompanied by the sound of crackling wrappers and crunching, the clamor of the party distant below them.

“I saw your fancy biopic,” Raihan said, through a mouthful of chips. “I didn’t know your favorite battle clips were of me versus Leon.”

“That fact was a little misconstrued I think. I’ve only ever seen ones with you and Leon since Hop has all of those recorded.”

Raihan chuckled, “Yeah, I suppose a lot of the information in those sorts of documentaries tends to be exaggerated. I remember how dumb mine was. They really exaggerated all the dragon stuff for the fanservice. What else was fabricated in yours?”

She briefly tapped a finger to her chin in thought. “My hobbies, I think? I told them my hobby was taking care of my team and battling, but they said they were looking for something outside of champion related things.”

“So you’re _not_ a master crocheter?” Raihan gasped with a dramatic lilt. “I had no idea!”

She giggled at his antics, “I dropped it when I was eight, I don’t have the patience for it anymore. I still remember how to do it though.”

Raihan chuckled, “You’re just like Leon, nothing in ur brain besides pokemon, eh?”

“You could say that.”

“Anything else?”

“Hmm, oh!” She pointed at a faint white line under her lip. “The story behind this scar was fabricated. They said it was from a pokemon, but really I fell and bit my lip. They also exaggerated the rivalry between me and Hop a lot...” she listed, counting each one on her hand. “All of the champion’s dream stuff was fake too...”

That piqued Raihan’s interest. “ _That_ was fake?” In the interview, she described how, much like any other child, she looked up to Leon and dreamed of becoming a great trainer. To Raihan, It seemed pretty standard for any other kid out there.

“Well, I didn’t really have a good answer for that question, so I just kinda made something up.”

Raihan wasn’t sure if he should ask. Normally he’d pick up on the cues and not poke his nose in where he shouldn’t, but he was admittedly curious. That part in the documentary seemed completely genuine.

Fuck it.

“Then exactly why did you become champion?” he asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

She frowned before folding a leg against her chest and resting her chin on her knee.

“If you don’t want to tell me, don’t worry about it—”

“No, no, it’s fine. It’s just...” Her gaze was distant on the horizon. “My reasons are just... a little complicated.”

Gloria wrung her hands before meeting Raihan’s eyes. “Can you keep a secret?”

It was unusual to see her so nervous when Raihan was used to seeing her expression schooled into neutrality. “...My lips are sealed.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this, especially Hop and Leon.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what a secret is.”

“Promise me?”

Her imploring stare was fixed on him; it was clear this was something really important to her. He sighed. “I promise. Gym Leader’s Honor. I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

She curled up on herself again. “I—well...” she fidgeted with the hem of her dress. “There...was never really a time when I specifically _wanted_ to be champion, believe it or not. I hadn’t even considered doing the gym challenge until about three months beforehand.”

Raihan’s eyes widened. Most kids prepared for the challenge for years before disembarking on such a potentially perilous journey.

“Really...the main reason why I did it was for Hop.”

Gloria paused, searching for her words. “By the time I met Hop, Leon was already Champion. And Hop was so proud; he was so proud to be the Champion’s brother. To Hop, Leon was this shining hero that he aspired to become.”

She pressed her lips together. “Initially, that was fine. I didn’t really pay it any mind. But after a while, I realized how much of Hop’s identity had been eclipsed by the idea of his brother and the championship title. Maybe it was because he was sick of everyone seeing him as the champion’s brother rather than seeing him, but I can only speculate.

“Hop didn’t just _want_ to become the champion, he felt like he was _destined_ to. When I asked him about it, he really didn’t care about anything else regarding the champion title. He didn’t really think about the fame or about defending his title, or about how he’d be separated from Leon and his mom.

“For him, winning the championship title was the only way he could reach out to his brother. Hop wanted to become closer to Leon by inheriting his title.”

Raihan could agree with her. He had witnessed Hop’s desperation when he was going through the Gym Challenge. 

“And I was scared when I realized that. Because I had seen the interviews Hop showed me, being the champion means you lose your freedom, your anonymity; your identity becomes inseparable from the title.”

Raihan hummed in affirmation. She was definitely right in that aspect. He had witnessed that firsthand. 

Gloria stared at her hands. “I was terrified Hop would be taken away from me once he became the champion. I was worried the demands of the job would break him apart into something I wouldn’t recognize when he came back.”

Raihan understood that feeling all too well.

Where Leon was once an energetic young boy was quickly moulded into the perfect champion, so fiercely competitive and possessive over his podium spot that it was terrifying.

The media always touted on and on about how Leon was the “Undefeatable Champion” who had “never once lost a battle in his life”, but Raihan and some of the other Gym Leaders knew the truth.

Leon did lose. He lost plenty of times during the Gym Challenge. When Raihan had first challenged Leon to a battle, he defeated Leon. Raihan could clearly remember all the times baby pokemon had bit Leon’s hand in insubordination; all the times Leon had been ground to dust by an enraged Tyranaitar because Leon couldn’t tell north from west; all the times Leon had screamed in frustration when he encountered a string of Galarian Wheezing had each exploded, fainting his pokemon instantly. Raihan could clearly remember all those times because he was there with Leon every step of the way. Perfection could never be achieved on the first try without honing, even Leon had to fall to learn how to rise above the others. The entire “Undefeatable Champion” bullshit was a ruse stirred up for marketing and fanservice. But Leon fulfilled that title once he stepped into his role. Raihan really had _never_ seen Leon lose after becoming the champion. It was frightening, like a part of Leon had suddenly disappeared.

Raihan once hated what Leon had become. He clung to the idea that Leon would have been a completely different person if he never won the championship. And he was probably right. But it was only after an extensive talk with his rival a year after that fateful day that Raihan learned to accept the Leon of today. He might have been right about Leon being different without the title, but it wouldn’t change anything. Raihan didn’t want to just sit around, fantasizing about what-if's and hypothetical Leons when he could instead be bettering his team and skills to battle against his real-life rival. Raihan would never be able to properly battle some perfect, fantasy version of Leon. 

Leon grew into the role of champion; and Raihan would just have to accept him completely or lose his dearest friend forever.

Raihan would always choose the former.

“The crown of the champion is a heavy burden to bear,” Gloria continued. “And I didn’t want the person I cared about the most to have to shoulder it unnecessarily. I wanted Hop to be happy, reunited with his brother, and I knew the only way I could do it was by defeating the champion.

"At the same time I knew I couldn't get in the way of his dream and I didn’t think I could win the championship, so, at the very least, I wanted to be there for Hop, supporting him where I could. That’s why I joined the gym challenge. That’s why I’m...here."

Raihan was quiet for a moment, processing all of this. “Quite the secret you have.”

She laughed self-deprecatingly. “You’re probably gonna tell me I should talk out my feelings with Hop or whatever, aren’t you?”

Raihan pursed his lips. “No, I won’t.”

Gloria spared a glance towards him.

“I don’t see a reason why you have to talk with him about this.”

She smiled appreciatively, “Thanks. My mom kept bugging me about it when I told her. Maybe ‘cause she thought I didn’t want to be the champion.”

“Do you? Not want to be the champion, that is?” Raihan asked.

“Not at all. I quite enjoy it actually. Now that Leon is chairman, I heard things are much better.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Raihan said. “Leon was on the job 24/7 from the day he started.”

Raihan could remember that day like it was yesterday. Ten years ago, Leon had defeated him in the tournament before moving on to fighting the gym leaders and the reigning champion at the time. Raihan had cheered his heart out for Leon every step of the way. 

When the champion’s pokemon finally fell, leaving Leon’s dynamaxed Charizard in its wake, Raihan could hardly believe his eyes. The stands had erupted in cheers and Raihan remembered hot tears spilling down his face. He was so elated and proud, knowing that he was the rival of the new champion. He could hold his head high, having been beaten by someone who went on to become the best.

He headed to the locker room immediately after the match and award ceremony to congratulate Leon, but he was blocked by the horde of feral sports reporters clamoring for an interview with the new champion. Raihan had tried to shove his way through the thick crowd, but he was stopped by two bodyguards fending off any outsiders from entering. They had refused to budge, no matter what, having been under direct orders from Rose to not let anyone in, no matter the circumstance.

Five minutes later, the doors finally parted and Raihan was blinded by the strobe-like, rapid fire camera flashes that went off. The bodyguards shoved aside the persistent crowd, making way for Leon, who was still clutching that enormous trophy practically half his size as he was shielded by Rose and Olena.

Raihan tried to yell to catch Leon’s attention, but he could hardly hear himself over the cacophony of the crowd.

He didn’t get the chance to talk with Leon until two weeks later. Even then their meeting was cut short by Leon’s tight schedule.

Every moment of Leon’s life was suddenly eclipsed by his champion responsibilities.

“He was practically raised by Rose,” Raihan recalled. “Since he became champion from such a young age, he stopped going to school. His schedule was planned for him down to the minute; he didn’t get a say in his life at all.”

“Yeah...” Gloria sighed. “I kinda figured.

“I suppose it was a little presumptuous of me to just assume the struggles that Hop was dealing with. But I knew that if his will was stronger than mine, he would best me in battle.

“Who knows? Maybe if he did become Champion, maybe he would have been fine. But...” Gloria shrugged. “All of that was enough reason for me to give my best shot at the Gym Challenge. I never expected that I would have become champion. I just did my absolute best to clear any hurdle I faced in the gym challenge and, well...out of sheer luck, I’m here now.”

“That is really impressive, y’know?”

“Hm?”

“Most people throw themselves over and over again at the Gym Challenge. And here you are; you hardly considered becoming a pokemon trainer, but you did because you cared about Hop. I don’t know if the public will love or hate you for that.”

“I know.” Her gaze fell. “I’m pretty sure people would hate me.”

“I don’t know,” Raihan said. “Maybe a part of why you got so far was _because_ of your willpower, not in spite of it. Don’t sell yourself short; I really don’t think it was just sheer luck that brought you here.”

“You think so?”

“Hey, we’ve battled how many times? I like to think I'm a better judge of skill than you since I'm your senior. I can tell when someone is half-assing stuff, and I know you’re just not that kind of person.”

Gloria smiled. “Thanks.”

“Are you really sure you’re okay with being Champion? Just like you said, you have to sacrifice a lot of things to bear the title.”

She hummed before turning her eyes to the stars above. “Before I did the Gym Challenge, I really didn’t have any dreams or aspirations. I didn’t have any idea as to what I was gonna do with my life. I got by in school fine, but I never really had any passions.

“But doing the Gym Challenge taught me a lot of things and I think I’ve found a passion in pokemon and battling. Leon has been a great mentor and you guys—she nudged her elbow against Raihan’s—have really helped me out a lot. I’m happy with what I’m doing right now. ”

Raihan grinned. “Good to know. Just wanted to double-check.”

“Thanks for your concern.”

Gloria yawned. “Sorry for unloading all of that on you, I hope I didn’t bore you to death.”

Raihan yawned as well. “Fuckin’ hell, don’t worry about it, I’m happy to have lent an ear.”

“Thanks, just you listening really helped me feel better.”

Raihan hopped off of the railing and stretched, wincing at the cracks and pops in his neck and back. He was getting old. “I’m gonna head back in. I’ll cover with the others if they ask where you are so take your time.”

“Thanks. Oh!” She pointed at the hoodie he lent her. “I should give this back to you.”

“Nah, you can hold onto it as long as you're out here. You can hand it back to me whenever, whether it be after the party or tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? But this is your signature jacket!” she said, eyebrows creased with concern.

“I’d feel much better knowing that you’re not freezing your ass out here while you do your champion brooding. Don’t worry yourself into a ditch.”

She looked like she was about to say something, but she closed her mouth. “Okay then, thanks again.”

“Come back to us whenever you want.” He turned to leave, but he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “If I can leave you with something though...”

Gloria turned a bit to face him.

“We all want to protect the people closest to us. I think Hop may have wished for the same towards you regarding the whole demands of the championship thing. I don’t think he would have wanted the title to not only have taken away his brother for ten years, but for it to take away his best friend too.

“I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you kept in contact when you could.”

Gloria stared at the ground apprehensively. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Raihan nodded before heading inside.

  


The next day, Raihan did end up posting the video of Gloria ineffectually wapping him with sleeves to the Gym leader group chat and she didn’t fail to remind him why he called her a “pintsized powerhouse” a week later in Hammerlocke stadium.

**Author's Note:**

> My punctuation, pacing, and word choice just went directly out the window with this one lol.  
> I just thought it’d be interesting if the entire reason why the protagonist strove to become the champion was to prevent Hop from doing so. Just cuz it’s evident to me that it’d be a v bad idea if Hop did actually become the Champion.
> 
> Also, Raihan is A+ older brother material


End file.
